


sacrifice

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 03, this is canon compliant AND awful. so: hooray
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-23 00:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30047409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: After the debacle with the First, one particular image stuck in Angel’s mind: the thin, invisible divide separating Jenny Calendar’s hand from gently resting on Giles’s shoulder.(Angel and Giles have a conversation.)
Relationships: Jenny Calendar/Rupert Giles
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> i got this idea and then spent like half an hour chasing it down. hooray for impulse fic!

After the debacle with the First, one particular image stuck in Angel’s mind: the thin, invisible divide separating Jenny Calendar’s hand from gently resting on Giles’s shoulder. He’d seen them stand like that before, closer to Buffy’s birthday; Giles talking a little too sharply, a badly hidden thread of panic in his voice, and Ms. Calendar reaching quietly up to place a hand on his shoulder. Giles had never turned to look at her when she did this—it was usually in the middle of some particularly vital briefing, some monster that needed a speedy death before it caused even _more_ damage—but his shoulders had relaxed ever so slightly, and he’d pressed his lips together and nodded as though Ms. Calendar had said, aloud, _calm down, Rupert._

Angel had been around, and he’d seen all kinds of people in love. He’d known from the very beginning that Giles and Ms. Calendar were going to build something that lasted. There would have been bumps and bends, as was the norm for two headstrong, intelligent, fucked-up people, but they’d been a _team,_ and they’d worked together to keep those kids safe. Nothing bound two people more effectively than a common goal, and that kind of thing was pretty easy to find in Sunnydale if you were particularly handy with a stake.

Angelus had taken a particular kind of joy in destroying something that had barely gotten the chance to exist. Angelus had known that this was perhaps the only time that Giles and Ms. Calendar had ever been happy, and that this _would_ be the last time that Giles let himself be happy like that again. Losing Ms. Calendar would have destroyed Giles in a way that he would never be willing to speak of to anyone, because Ms. Calendar had been the only person who he had allowed himself to be unguarded with.

Angel hadn’t thought about that very much since his return. The magnitude of Angelus’s evil had a tendency to eclipse the individual cruelties dealt to his many victims. But the thought didn’t leave his head, and _wouldn’t,_ and it was what ended with him standing, again, on Giles’s doorstep.

Giles didn’t look quite as vengeful or rattled as the first time they’d locked eyes, but he certainly didn’t look friendly. He wasn’t holding a crossbow, this time, but there was a stake held loosely by his side. He did not say anything at all.

“I just wanted to say—” Angel began.

Calmly, Giles said, “I will kill you with my own two hands if you so much as speak her name. No apology will ever make things right between us.”

“I’m not here to apologize for killing her,” said Angel. The responding flash of steely rage in Giles’s eyes sent a chill through him— _him,_ a walking corpse—and he hastened to elaborate. “I’m here to apologize for something else.”

“Be that as it may,” Giles began. His fingers tightened on the stake.

“I don’t think you’d _accept_ my apology for killing her, Giles,” said Angel. “No matter how much I want to give it. I’m here to apologize…” The words were sticking in his throat, but Giles no longer looked _as_ quietly furious, and he hadn’t shut the door just yet.

“You have quite a myriad of sins to apologize to me for, Angel,” said Giles very coldly. “Perhaps you’d like to come back another day with a more comprehensive list?”

“It should have been her,” said Angel.

The fury in Giles’s eyes gave way to a genuine confusion, softening his face into a much more familiar expression. It made Angel’s chest _ache._ “I’m sorry?”

“I came back,” said Angel, “for…I don’t know what reason. The Powers brought me back, or maybe the First, I _don’t_ know, but what I do know is that I’m not the one who deserves a second chance. Ms. Cal— _she_ does. And I’m sorry…that I’m here, and she’s not. What she shared with you was worth preserving.”

It seemed to be taking Giles quite a lot of effort to keep his face stony and unreadable. He pressed his lips together, and for a moment Angel felt like they were both thinking of the same soft voice: _calm down, Rupert._ After a long, tense silence, he said, with a barely-there tremor to his words, “Yes. It was.”

“Yeah,” said Angel.

“And you methodically killed it,” said Giles. “Killed _her._ Used her image to trick me after hours of torture, all for your own amusement.”

“I don’t get any pleasure from those memories now, Giles,” said Angel quietly. “If that helps.”

“It does,” said Giles. “To know that you feel even a _sliver_ of what I felt when I found her body—I suppose that that’s all I can ask for at this juncture.” And then, to Angel’s surprise, he set down the stake, looking intently at him as though searching for something. “Angel, Jenny risked her very life— _lost_ it, in the process—to give you a second chance at living,” he said. “I may not like it—may _despise_ it with every fiber of my being—but I won’t accept an apology for your being here. I love her too much not to honor what she would have wanted for you and Buffy.”

Angel hadn’t at all been expecting this. He opened his mouth, but found himself at a loss for words.

“I only worry that you don’t quite understand what she sacrificed,” said Giles. “I rather think that I’m the only one who does.”

With difficulty, Angel said, “You think—you think that Ms. Calendar wanted—”

“I _know_ her,” said Giles. “Better, I think, than you. I know exactly what she was doing, I know why she did it, and I _abhor_ it—” His voice caught. “And every day of my life I will wish I still had the opportunity to tell her how thoroughly I disagree with her methodology and her recklessness. But if you ever apologize to me again for accepting Jenny’s last gift, I think I _will_ kill you myself.”

The door shut in Angel’s face. He stood there, staring at the wood grain, and remembered fastening a single red rose to it a lifetime ago.


End file.
